Customer awareness of product or service availability, brand name recognition and/or perception of usefulness of particular products or services or of advantages to be gained from obtaining or using them, have historically been recognized as important factors in the decision-making process concerning the purchase of such products or services. As a consequence, many systems and approaches have already been proposed for exposing prospective customers to such product or service oriented information.
Traditionally, such information usually took the form of advertisement extolling the virtues or advantages of one brand of product or service over a competing brand. However, since the advent of the information age, customers are becoming more and more sophisticated and demanding, especially as far as the information contents of the messages directed at them by the product or service providers is concerned.
In recognition of this emerging trend, some attempts have already been made to go beyond brand advertising as such and into an area where the prospective customer is provided with information that, while still presented in connection with a particular brand, actually educates the customer about the properties of products being promoted, or ways of using them, and/or elucidates the customer on other potentially useful aspects of such products or services.
One example of this approach is a so-called "informercial", which is, for instance, a television program of an extended length (such as half an hour) devoted to a single product or service (or to just a few, usually related, products or services) that is produced by or for, and the air time of which is paid for by, an offeror of such product or service, and that presents information of the above character relating thereto. While this approach is gaining in popularity, its appeal may be limited by its substantial cost in relation to the rather limited size of the audience, and particularly by the fact that, considering the home environment in which the program is being viewed, the viewer is tempted to postpone ordering the product or service and eventually forgets to do so.
Another proposed approach that, at least on the surface, shows more promise involves the placement of a video display apparatus at a strategically selected store location, usually but not necessarily close to the product to be promoted, and presentation thereon of information of the above character concerning such product. While this approach provides the potential customer with relevant information right at a location at which the product in question is available for sale, it still leaves much to be desired. For one, the choice of the product being presented is that of the store and not of the customer. Secondly, the informational program is usually being presented continuously, so to speak in an endless loop, which means that the chance that the potential buyer will see the program in the proper sequence from the beginning to the end is very low. This, of course, detracts from the appeal of such presentation. Last but not least, the presentation is available for viewing to anyone in the vicinity of the display apparatus, thus making viewing in private, which the customer may prefer, impossible.